


Christmas Is Canceled

by jaerie



Series: driving me crazy, but I'm into it [7]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Christmas Party Disaster, Fire, Fishnets, Happy Ending, M/M, Temper Tantrums
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2017-12-06
Packaged: 2019-02-11 07:20:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12930303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaerie/pseuds/jaerie
Summary: It is the first time Louis will be cohosting Harry's annual Christmas party with him and everything needs to be perfect.  Everything doesn't go perfectly.





	Christmas Is Canceled

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written as part of an ongoing challenge. We each select random numbers and are given a specific emotion from the book 1000 Feelings For Which There Are No Names. To read the other fics written in this challenge, [click here](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/ShortFic_Challenge_For_Which_There_Is_No_Name/works), or you can find the masterpost on tumblr [here](http://lululawrence.tumblr.com/post/159679804243/1000-feelings-for-which-there-are-no-names-prompt).
> 
> Prompt #208: The enjoyment of a temper tantrum

* * *

 

 

Harry moved around the kitchen, bright happy Christmas music playing on his stereo in the living room loud enough for the whole house to be filled with holiday cheer.   He had been singing along as he cooked and baked, wooden spoons and spatulas his microphones while he danced around.  He had always enjoyed the holidays.  As a kid he loved the Christmas lights and presents and excitement and now as an adult he loved to make his home inviting, decorating nearly to the point of too much and baking as many candies and cookies as he could manage.  

For the past few years he had held a Christmas party with his friends and family and this year was no different.  Preparations were in full swing.  There were only a handful of hours left until his guests would start arriving and he was busy getting the last minute goodies ready.  The stove and oven had been going all afternoon and it added a cozy warmth along with the aromas that only homemade goods could bring.  

He had on a gingerbread man apron over his holiday sweater, sleeves rolled up to his elbows to keep them out of the food.  There was a pot of melting chocolate on the stove ready for candy dipping and a big pot of creamy soup he had prepared himself the day before warming up for his guests right next to it.

It was the first year Louis would be hosting the party with him and for many of his guests it would be their first time meeting him as well.  For the most part he was very excited but the small bits of anxiety had him flitting around to make sure everything turned out perfectly, there was no room for errors this time.  He had already forgotten a few things on his list and had sent Louis several frantic texts to make sure to stop to pick them up on his way over before everyone arrived.    

He was just sliding the oven mitts on his hands when a loud crash came from the living room followed by a loud screech.  He flung the oven mitts onto the counter and raced towards the noise just as a streak of fluffy white flew past him.  

“Sassy!” he yelped, nearly tripping on his new kitten before his eyes fell on the source of the racket.  His beautifully decorated Christmas tree was laying across the floor in a mess of shattered glass balls and dislodged tinsel, his beautiful angel topper crumpled in a heap.  Words escaped him as he stared at the disaster, all of his hard work for nothing, all of it now a tangled heap of disaster.  

“Oh Sassy, what have you done,” he muttered, a hand over his mouth in dismay.  He didn’t have enough time to carefully clean up the broken glass and ornaments and put everything back together in a way that was up to his standards by the time the party was set to start.  There were frustrated tears pressing at his eyes.  But it was only one set back.  It would be fine.  He could fix it and fill the empty spaces with the extras he had packed away.  

A heavy sigh left him as he took careful steps across the floor, gingerly lifting the tree to keep as much in place as he could.  It was a little difficult to keep the tree upright, off center and bent from hitting the arm of the couch on the way down.  He had just finally managed to set it straight when a shrill beeping made him jump a mile, startling him enough to nearly knock the whole thing down again.  

“Fuck!” he exclaimed when he realized it was the fire alarm, racing into the kitchen to a growing haze of smoke.  Red flames were flickering from the stove, his abandoned oven mitt on fire where it had landed against one of the hot burners.  He panicked and rushed around in circles for a few moments until enough sense came back to him to grab the small fire extinguisher from under the sink.  He pulled the pin and aimed it at the flames, a white cloud spraying out, mixing with the smoke in a cloud that made his lungs seize.  A hacking cough overwhelmed him as the fire was put out but he was relieved that a disaster had been avoided.  He shoved open the kitchen window and fanned at the air with a dish towel until the air was finally clear enough for him to take a clear breath and breathe a small sigh after the excitement. 

It was short lived when he took in the state of his kitchen.  The soup he had slaved over had been uncovered, a thick film of white coating the pot and the soup within.  His chocolate was in the same state as were the rest of his goodies on the counter that had yet to make it out to the table.  His bottom lip trembled at all of his decorative holiday plates ruined.  Many hours of baking gone to a series of unfortunate events.  He didn’t even have time to replace them before everyone arrived.  He wouldn’t even have time to clean up this mess.  

The timer on the counter went off and he picked up his remaining oven mitt in defeat, sliding it on his hand to take out the last trays of cookies.  He opened up the door to the oven and immediately frowned at the sight of raw dough in Christmas shapes in the same state they had been in when he’d placed them there earlier.  There wasn’t a rush of heat hitting his face either as he leaned forward.  He held his bare hand out above the trays and found that despite preheating the oven to the proper setting, it was barely warmer than room temperature inside.  He double checked the settings which still displayed that it should be at 325 degrees and groaned.  It had been hot when he had slid them in earlier.  

“Fuck!!” he yelled out, throwing his oven mitt down to the floor and stomping his foot in frustration so hard that a pain shot up his leg.    

“You okay?” he heard Louis call to him as the front door clicked shut, “It smells like something’s burning.” 

Harry stepped out of the kitchen, the mess that he had become, and tried his best not to glare at the comment.  

“Thank you captain obvious, yes something was burning!” he threw his hands up in the air, letting them drop to his sides in exasperation.  

“Woah, sorry,” Louis held his hands up in surrender, “Just thought maybe you forgot to set a timer or something.  What happened?” 

“This party is cursed is what happened!  The oven stopped working, Sassy knocked over the tree and while I was dealing with that the stove caught on fire!”  He knew it wasn’t Louis’ fault but he couldn’t stop himself from being angry.  

“Did you at least pick up the stuff I texted you about?” he sighed, trying not to take it out on his boyfriend.  

“Sure did!” he pulled a package out of a shopping bag and held it up, “First, Solo cups.” 

He stared at the package for a moment, his anger boiling.  “Are those red?” 

“Yeah?” Louis shrugged, setting them down on the table.  

“Green, Louis, I asked you to pick up GREEN solo cups!! I already have red ones!”

“I didn’t see any green ones, I thought you just needed cups!” 

“It’s a Christmas party!  Red and green!  It’s a theme!!” he huffed.  

“Okaaay… Well I’m sure it’s fine, red is still Christmas.”  

“I was very specific, Louis,” his voice growing deeper as he quickly approached his boiling point.  

“Well not really.  I wasn’t sure what you meant by little red stockings and I had to go to a couple stores in the mall to find some.  But you weren’t answering your texts so I figured I’d get both kinds.”  

Louis fumbled with another little shopping bag and pulled out one package and then another while Harry stared at him in confusion.  

“What the hell are those?” his fists clenched while he tried to hold in an outburst.  In Louis hands were two slightly different sets of red fishnet stockings.  One looked to be festive with white faux fur around the top with a sprig of fake holly while the others were plain, a picture of long legs modeling them on the front of the package.  

“Red stockings?  They were the only kind I could find in red but I figured with your long slender legs they would fit fine,” he shrugged and looked between the two packages.  “Personally I’m a fan of the Christmas ones myself.”  

“What the fuck??  Why would you buy red fishnets??  If this is your idea of a joke, I’m really not in the mood.  Where are the other stockings?” he was seething now, his face growing red as he tried to contain it.  

“These are the only stockings I got?  If you wanted something different you should have told me where to buy them because I’ve never gone shopping for them before and wasn’t sure where I was supposed to go--”  

“LITTLE RED STOCKINGS LOUIS!!! Christmas stockings!  Hang on the mantle little red velvet Christmas stockings!!!!” His voice rang out loudly in the room, “It’s a Christmas party, Louis!  What the hell??”  

“I don’t know!! I thought you were going to do some kind of kinky Christmas show tonight or something after everyone was gone!” Louis tried to defend but was shrinking in on himself with the magnitude of Harry’s outburst.  

“I’ve been stressing out about this party for weeks and you thought I was asking you to buy fishnet stockings to do a kinky Christmas show for the internet??  Are you serious right now” Steam could have been blowing out of his ears at the bubbles of rage erupting in his bloodstream.  “I have no Christmas tree, no food, no cookies, no candy, my kitchen is covered in white powder and you couldn’t even pick up Christmas stockings for my party favours??”

His breathing was heavy, nostrils flaring in anger with each one and his fingernails digging crescents into his palms.  He stared at Louis’ gaping speechless mouth, stunned into silence at this version of Harry that rarely surfaced, that Louis had yet to see.  The stockings were still held in his hands, shopping bags still piled on his forearm and it was too much for Harry to look at right now.  

“Christmas is fucking canceled!!” he screamed as he stomped past Louis to the door, slamming it with a satisfying bang that seemed to shake the whole building.  He realized too late that he was only wearing slippers on his feet that were soaking through from the lingering dust of snow and had left his coat hanging on the coat tree next to the door.  It wasn’t terribly cold but the wind cut right through his sweater.  He couldn’t go back to grab them now, it was too late, he had already committed to his tantrum so he trudged on down the sidewalk with angry purposeful steps.  

He wasn’t sure how long he had been stomping along, he had left his phone in the kitchen, but after a while, the fight had slowly drained from his body, his anger simmering down to a resigned sadness.  It hadn’t been his intention to go off on Louis, that wasn’t who he was.  The guilt ached almost as much as his ruined holiday party.  Any other year, he would have laughed off the events with his guests and ordered take out.  Instead he had sabotaged all of his Christmas cheer by his need for everything to be perfect.  

His wet feet were frozen and his body shivering when he finally started back towards home.  He had gone so far that he was nearly lost by the time he turned around, sure he would die of exposure before he made it to his door.  

He was surprised to see Christmas lights twinkling around his windows, strings framing the inside of each that he definitely hadn’t put there himself.  He pushed the door open and was shocked to be greeted by peppy music and loud conversation and laughter, a party in full swing.  He gaped at the scene, cold air rushing in with the door held open.  

“Harold!  There you are!” Louis rushed over to him with a bright smile, shoving a warm mug of hot chocolate and Kahlua into his ice cold hands.  “The store must have been out of wine but Nick brought some so we’re all set!” 

Louis easily lied to cover up his absence and shuffled him into the living room and the bunches of guests.  The Christmas tree was upright in the corner, straight as an arrow with the gaps of broken ornaments filled in.  His angel was straightened out and resting gracefully on top, all the shattered glass swept up and cleared from the floor.  He glanced into the kitchen which looked spotless from his vantage point and all of the guests were standing around with party plates filled with snacks and goodies that he was sure had been ruined.  

“How did you…” Harry started as Louis subtly guided him back to his bedroom to help him out of his wet slippers and dirty apron.  

“Just a little cleaning and the snacks you had already made up in the fridge,” Louis shrugged a little, helping him into the Christmas jumper he had laid out on his bed early for the actual party.  “I had to unpack all the goodie boxes you made up for the neighbors so we’ll have to replace those but I figured there’s ten days before it is actually Christmas.  I’ll help you bake up some new stuff to put in them.  Or maybe just be there for moral support because I’m shit at baking.”

“I can’t believe you did all this… after what I said…” he trailed off, pulling the jumper down his torso, fumbling with the little switch that lit up the Christmas tree on the front.  Tacky yet delightfully festive, exactly what he wanted out of a party with his friends.  

“I’m pretty embarrassed about that, actually,” Louis blushed, biting his lip, “I guess my mind was in the gutter when you asked me to pick them up, I don’t know what I was thinking honestly.  You were right, Christmas stockings for a Christmas party.  Anyone else in the world would have made that connection.  I called in a favour and had a friend drop some real stockings off for me.  I’m really sorry, that was the last thing you needed from me when everything was going wrong.” 

“I… Thank you.  But I still shouldn’t have yelled at you like that.  I don’t know what came over me.”  

“I have a way you can make it up to me later,” Louis smirked while he let his gaze purposefully run down and then back up his long legs.  “You wouldn’t embarrass me by making me return those things after all that, now would you?”  

Louis moistened his lips seductively and threw him a wink before moving past him to head back into the party.  He paused with a hand on the door jam, glancing back at him with mischief gleaming in his eyes.  

“You should probably go slip into them now.  If I know you already have them on under your trousers during the party it’ll be harder for you to back out of it later,” he threw another wink back at Harry that had his cheeks flushing for multiple reasons, “And you know I like it harder.”  

With that Louis slipped back into the party leaving Harry alone with images far too inappropriate to be surrounded by his family and friends.  It didn’t phase him, though, ripping open the Christmas themed stockings as he raced into the bathroom to change.  

Nothing had gone quite as planned but as he pulled each stocking up his legs, body tingling with excitement, he couldn’t say he would change any part of it.  

**Author's Note:**

> [If you enjoyed, here's the tumblr post :) Come say hi!](http://jaerie.tumblr.com/post/168259249682/title-christmas-is-canceled-author-jaerie-word)


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